The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression [Paperback]

Thomas Szasz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1988

This intriguing book undercuts everything you thought you knew about psychotherapy.

Until recent years, ''bad'' and ''immoral'' were the terms used to describe people who are now referred to as ''sick'' and ''in need of treatment.'' Moral and religious perspective has been replaced by medical and therapeutic rhetoric. It is little wonder why the world is plagued by legions of rapists, drug users, murderers, thieves, and child abusers, all of whom are now referred to as having one form or another of ''addiction'' and are thus either ''sick'' or suffering from ''mental illness.'' Accordingly, modern psychotherapists claim that these are in need of specialized ''therapy'' or ''treatment'' to help them ''cope with their disease.'' Moral relativism, bolstered by psychotherapy, has prevailed over the traditional ideas of self-control, individual responsibility, and moral culpability. Thomas Szasz moves to demythologize psychotherapy itself in a most provocative manner.

--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Szasz's important book will test the self-insight of anyone involved in the therapeutic process.'' --Publishers Weekly --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

About the Author

THOMAS SZASZ is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York's Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. His many books include The Manufacture of Madness, Ideology and Insanity, Ceremonial Chemistry, The Myth of Psychotherapy, Pharmacracy, and Law, Liberty, and Psychiatry. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press (December 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815602235
• ISBN-13: 978-0815602231
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Much-Needed Debunking of Psychotherapy, July 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression (Paperback)

Dr. Szasz provides a refreshing break from the psychobabble that dominates so much public discourse. Psychology and psychiatry are not nearly as scientific as they pretend to be. There is a world of difference between the "mental health" field and the non-psychiatric branches of medical science.

20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PIVITIOL STUDY, May 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric and Repression (Hardcover)

This book and this book in particular were pivitol in my true understanding of "mental illness". I just wish more doctors would read this book, and have half the guts szasz has when it comes to defending the victims of this modern witch hunt we seem to accept all to willingly as part of modern life.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE MAJOR WORKS FOR A PROMINENT "ANTI-PSYCHIATRIST", August 10, 2010

By 

Steven H. Propp (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Myth of Psychotherapy: Mental Healing as Religion, Rhetoric, and Repression (Paperback)

Thomas Szasz (born 1920) is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center. He is a well-known critic of psychiatry, of the social role of medicine in modern society, and is a social libertarian.

Szasz states in the Preface to this 1978 work, "The present work is an effort to complete the demythologizing of psychiatry begun in The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct. As mental illness is the core concept of what psychatrists allegedly study, so psychotherapy is the paradigmatic practice in which they supposedly engage. The task of psychiatric demythologizing would thus remain incomplete without scrutinizing the ideas and interventions that psychiatrists designate by the term psychotherapy."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Virtually anything anyone might do in the company of another person may now be deemed as psychotherapeutic. If the definer has the proper credentials, and if his audience is sufficiently gullible, any such act will be publicly accepted and accredited as a form of psychotherapy."
"Hence, the very origin of the word psychosurgery is deeply revealing of its character as fake therapy on a metaphorical organ."
"When such an argument is made by Jacobins against clerics, we recognize it as anticlericalism. When it is made by Nazis against Jews, we recognize it as anti-Semitism. But when it is made by Freud against women, we do not recognize it as antifeminism."
"If there is any change in the 'patient,' it is, in the last analysis, brought about by the 'patient' himself. Hence, it is false to say that the psychotherapist treats or is a therapist. It would be more accurate to say that the 'patient' in psychotherapy treats or is a therapist."